New Viz: NBA Jam - He's on Fire!

  



I love to just play in Tableau.  One day when playing around, I developed a nice looking chart, similar to a radar chart (and I'm sure it's been done a thousand times before).  Then I thought to myself, what could I visualize using this chart type.  I dug around for a bit.  I found FIFA World Cup player attributes and thought it might work.  But then some further digging led me to NBA Jam 1993 player attributes.  Man, I loved that game!!!!!!!  It was so fun...and it was not very serious (which I love).  I gave it a try with a couple of players and that was it.


If you are not familiar with the game, NBA Jam was developed by Midway in 1993. It was a 2 on 2 basketball game using real teams and player likenesses from the NBA. The game featured players that could jump ten feet high and do 720 dunks. It was also known for being filled with Easter Eggs. NBA Jam is famous for the dozens of catch phrases voiced by Tim Kitzrow, modeled after Marv Albert. Catch phrases such as Kaboom and Boomshakalaka became regularly used terms in the actual sport. But the most popular of catch phrases started when a player made two shots in a row without the other team scoring.  When that happened, it was announced that, "he's heating up".  And if you hit a third one in a row without the other team scoring, you'd hear, "he's on fire". When a player was on fire, he was nearly unstoppable as he was faster and had significantly improved shooting accuracy. And it lasted until the opponent scored. Each player was measured in four attributes with a range of 0-6.  This visualization breaks down the rating of each player and each team while also diving into the sounds and interesting facts about the game.  


I will note that even though I think these charts are beautiful, they would be much better as bar charts.  I believe that so much that the bottom of the viz shows the same data but in the form of a sortable bar chart.  It's certainly a lot more insightful.


You can check out my NBA Jam viz and my entry for Sarah Bartlett's IronQuest (which I'm co-hosting this month) here or click on the full image below to go to the viz.  I hope you like it!




 

Kevin Flerlage, March 29, 2021

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7 comments:

  1. Hello Kevin, is there any need of data scaffold in making this chart? Thanks for blog.

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    1. Yes, data densification is required as each data point requires 24 rows of data (4 points for 6 polygons). So I did a cross join to 24 rows of data. For more on densification, please search our website. There is a good amount of content.

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  2. Hello Kevin, which fields are required to make this chart? Thanks again for the blog

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    Replies
    1. I am releasing a blog post on Monday that will break it down in full detail.

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  3. Hello Kevin, how did you label the attributes over the chart?Thanks for blog.

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    1. I used a dual axis. On the dual axis, I figured out the placement (coordinate) I wanted it to sit at and then made the dual axis MIN(6.5). I then simply labeled it with the name. Check out the workbook and you should see how I did it. If you need further assistance, please feel free to email me at flerlagek@gmail.com.

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